


TOO TRUE TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOU

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Little Black Dress, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-05
Updated: 2009-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are voices in his dreams.  There are always voices in his dreams (when he lets himself sleep).  They never make any sense (just background noise; ignore it).  A word here and there.  Drugs.  <em>Tok'ra</em>.  <em>(Snakes.  Fucking snakes.  He always hated the <em>Goa'uld</em> — they all did — but the <em>Tok'ra</em> were worse, preaching alliance and cooperation and just waiting until your back was turned to stick a snake in your head...)</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	TOO TRUE TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOU

He's pretty sure he's been here before. He's been in a lot of places like this. Burnt-out dives in the middle of nowhere. His ride died up the road a bit and he had to walk. The bartender said he was crazy when he came in the door.

Yeah, he gets that a lot.

But his money's good, and if you have to drink the liquor fast before it eats through the glass, there's something familiar about that, too. The first shot burns all the way down, and gets rid of the feeling he's missed a few too many meals lately. The second one keeps it company and takes the edge off, making him think it might be a good idea to stick around here until night. He's going to need a ride out of this place.

For some reason he makes the guy behind the bar nervous. Guy tells him they've got rooms if he'd like one. He's going on about them being nothing fancy, just a bed, and the moment the guy says 'bed', well, it's enough to remind him that he can't remember the last time he saw one. So he lets him show him the way.

He brings the bottle from the bar.

The room is tiny but not too filthy. Bed, toilet, sink, mirror. The guy quotes a rate, then adjusts it down when he just stares. He hands over the money and takes the key.

Shuts the door and locks himself inside. Goes over and stares into the mirror.

He still doesn't recognize the face that stares back.

He doesn't know his own name.

#

_"I'm just saying there's got to be a safer way to do this. The Reole drug isn't something you really want to fool around with, and Anise says this new version the _Tok'ra_ have managed to synthesize is even stronger and with the delivery system Bill's come up with I just don't think that—"_

There are voices in his dreams. There are always voices in his dreams (when he lets himself sleep). They never make any sense (just background noise; ignore it). A word here and there. Drugs. _Tok'ra_. _(Snakes. Fucking snakes. He always hated the _Goa'uld_ — they all did — but the _Tok'ra_ were worse, preaching alliance and cooperation and just waiting until your back was turned to stick a snake in your head...)_

_"Look, Sunshine, any time you can come up with a better way to get next to these guys, I'm all ears. This worked just fine last year when I used it to impersonate whatsisname and get close to, you know, the big cheese Alliance guy—"_

_"Oh, yeah, sure, sure. Let me see if I remember that one: Teal'c got captured and tortured, your disguise failed, and you ended up declaring war on the—"_

_"Now, now, now. How come you have to always be so negative about everything? Why don't you—"_

_ "Why don't you tell us what your mission was, Colonel?" _

A new voice interrupts the others. The man on the bed tosses uneasily.

_"Tell us what your mission was, Colonel."_

He doesn't like dreaming about this voice. It brings him nothing but pain. Fear and pain. In this part of the dream he loses himself.

_"Your mission, Colonel."_

He sits up, gasping, his body shaking with remembered pain. Only he doesn't remember any pain. It's only there in dreams, and the images fade quickly when he awakens. All that's left behind is emptiness and anger.

He was somebody once. Someone with a place, a name, a purpose.

Not any more.

If somebody did this to him, he doesn't even know who they were.

He runs his hand through his hair. It's damp with sweat. He pushes himself to his feet, lurches the half-step to the sink. The water runs rust-brown, then yellow, and finally close to clear. There isn't a hot tap and a cold tap. There's just water, and when he scoops up a double handful to rinse his face, it's neither hot nor cold. He sluices his face, runs wet hands through his hair, wipes them dry on his bare chest. No maid service in this hotel. It's a far cry from...

From what?

He has no fucking idea.

He lets his body fall back to the bed with a grunt of irritation, reaches for the bottle — half gone; it's how he got to sleep — picks it up and knocks back a healthy swallow. Breakfast of champions. Of winners. Winners never quit, and quitters never win. His...

The almost-memory vanishes like smoke when he grabs for it.

He remembers....

He remembers a crash. No. A wreck. Or a burnt-out building. One or the other. And he was walking away from it. (Building? He thinks. Maybe he was hiding. Maybe he'd been somewhere before and doesn't remember. After he was somewhere _else_ that he doesn't remember.)

He remembers walking. It was dusk. He remembers the sound of engines, the smear of colored lights across the sky. Buildings. The sound of unfamiliar music.

The first building he came to was a bar, and he wanted to see people, so he went in. He had money, so he ordered a drink. And then he was laughing and relaxed, and not knowing which way was up didn't seem to matter too much, and the two guys who'd bought him the last three rounds of drinks took him out through the side door into the alley to beat him up and steal anything he might have in his pockets.

So he beat them both unconscious, and took everything they had, and took their guns, too. Guns were familiar (why?) and he'd wanted the money. It was only then that he thought to check his own pockets (because he couldn't read any of the words on any of the things he took away from them and he thought that couldn't be right) and he found there wasn't anything in them but a handful of coins and a purple crystal. He didn't know what it was (then); later he found out it was a key, and later still he lost it.

By then he'd been through the _Chappa'ai_ a dozen times. Not sure what he was looking for. Home. Revenge. Somebody who recognized his face. He didn't find any of them.

On a planet whose name he doesn't remember he sat in on a friendly game of Deemo that turned out to be not so friendly after all, and so he shot the dealer, and after that nobody at all was friendly on Planet No-Name, and that was when he found out you could check in any time you liked—

_(the fragment of an almost-memory teases at him and he bats it away irritatedly)_

—but that everybody needed a permit to leave and the local peacekeepers watched the _Chappa'ai_ non-stop. Since he didn't have much chance of getting that permit (because the dealer in that crooked game turned out to have been the son of the Peacekeeper-in-Chief and everybody in the damned bar'd seen his face) he stole a ship instead. And somehow that turned out to be another stupid idea, because now the ship is smeared over the ass-end of nowhere and he's here.

Wherever "here" is. He'd been hoping for somewhere with a few more people, but for some reason, the friendly locals of Planet No-Name didn't really take to the notion of somebody making off with one of their ships. He even asked nice. _(He won't let himself wonder where he learned to fly, why the controls of the Death Glider seemed so familiar — he knows damned well he's no Jaffa — where he got the skills that let him blow three of their guys out of the sky.)_ Just bad luck there was a cloaked _tel'tak_ up there on sentry duty. Worse luck it'd been retrofitted with weapons. Death Gliders only have limited hyperjump capability to begin with; he babied it along as far as he could — aiming for the nearest _Chappa'ai_ — and he'd still done the last stretch at sublight. It was only when he reached atmosphere that he found out the athodyd system was pretty well fucked, and a Death Glider lands about as well as a thrown brick even when its tipjets _are_ working.

The walls here are thin. He can hear the sounds of sex reverberating around him — thumps and groans and cries of pay-for-play ecstasy. Coming and hurting sound a lot alike. The sounds are what woke him. He's been hearing them for a while. Not like he had a lot of illusions about what this place was, but it must be evening now, and some girl and her fifteen-minute date will be wanting this room. And he's had his beauty-sleep, and he knows there's a _Chappa'ai_ somewhere on this sun-scorched hellhole. Now it's time to go see if the barkeep's going to tell him where it is.

He'll even ask nice.

He gets himself back into his clothes — boots and leather pants and a shirt that's seen better days. Buckles his gunbelt on and straps down his holster, tucks his hideout pieces away _(one for show and two to go — someone said that to him once — who?)_ tucks his knives away — the two in his boots that go in easy and come out just as easy and the one in the wrist sheath that doesn't come out easy at all but if he's down to relying on that one, he's already in serious kimchee anyway. What his shirt doesn't cover, his leather jacket does. _(Dressed to kill, and he frowns — looking at himself in the mirror — because he's almost sure he heard someone else say those words once, and it was meant as a joke, but he can't think why it would ever be funny.)_

He opens the door, checks the corridor — empty — walks out of the room. He remembers to bring the bottle.

At night, the whole place looks different. Lit up and a pretend glow of happiness over everything, like good times are coming and everybody's gonna treat each other right when they get here. Only good times never do get here, and nobody treats anybody right.

There's about a dozen people in the bar. Three of them work here — two girls and a boy, all dressed in cheap and bright, all painted up — and the rest have come for other things. There are three men in the corner playing Deemo — he sees the tiles flash even in the dim light — one man sitting alone at another table eating something out of a bowl. Three of the other men are standing at the bar to drink. The two women are sitting at a table. From the looks the whores are giving them, they've all tried their luck there already. He goes up to the bar, taking a place at the far end. Sure enough, the guy hurries down.

"What can I get you this evening? We have—"

"You sell food." It's not a question.

"Oh yes, but—"

"Bring me some. And something that isn't this." He sets the bottle down on the table.

There are a couple of tables empty. He goes over and sits down at one. Sure enough, one of the working girls shows up before his food does.

"You look lonely," she says.

"Not really." She starts to get up. He puts a coin on the table and rests his fingers on it. She sits down again and looks at him. "I'm not that lonely. But I'm new in town. How much to talk to you for a while?"

"Buy me a drink, give me that _shesh'ta_ , you can talk all you want, fella."

He nods, but doesn't let go of the coin. She smiles, and snaps her fingers. Somebody who's probably the barkeep's son scurries over with a tray, a pitcher, two glasses. He takes the glasses, pours for both of them.

"You got nice manners, fella. Hey, you got a name?"

He smiles at her, lazy and slow. "Not really. You?"

"Oh, everybody just calls me Denda. It's short for Dendeusderith. You know." She takes a long swallow of her drink. He sips his. It's beer. Sort of. "So, what'cha want to talk about? You know," she says, as if it's just occurred to her, "you talk real pretty. Nobody's ever called Inolfre a town before."

"So what do they usually call it?"

"Supply station. Assay office, general store, this place. It's why we're so far from the _Chappa'ai_ ; bring _alchrego_ anywhere near it and you might as well not dig it up in the first place. Crop has to be taken off planet by ship. Every two years."

He gets interested when she mentions a ship, less so when he says two years. "So, you about due?"

Denda makes a rude noise. "Just had one. You planning to walk out of here, _Chappa'ai_ 's in that direction," she says, jerking a thumb back up the road (answering the other question he'd wanted the answer to). "I was you, I'd just wait for my friends. Less they aren't your friends."

His gaze sharpens, but she doesn't say anything else. He lets go of the _shesh'ta_. She still doesn't say anything. He adds a second one. She takes it and leans forward.

"I'm usually up and down during the day. Kid's teething, y'know? So I hear Treca talking to some guys back in the kitchen, and they didn't sound like anybody local, and they talked about a guy looked like you they were looking for, and Treca said he hadn't seen you, but I looked around the door and one of them was Jaffa. First Prime, you know, with the gold? And the other one was saying they tracked you here, and he told Treca to call him if you showed up. And I bet he is."

If he didn't have bad luck he wouldn't have any kind of luck at all, because there's two kinds of Jaffa in the universe — peaceful farmers, and professional leg-breakers — and the only farm in his future is the kind that the kind of people who hire former First Primes want to see to it that he buys. "There a back way out of here?" he asks Denda.

"There's a door through the kitchen. Some of us with kids, we've got places out back. And sometimes a guy likes to pay for an all-night, you know?"

"Let's say I just did," he says. He gets to his feet and holds out his hand, and he can see her thinking about how to get more money out of him, and he doesn't want to hurry her any more than he already has, because that's a sure way to make her dig in her heels and jack up the price.

And that's about the time his luck goes from 'bad' to 'none at all.'

A guy comes in the front door, and he's dressed like one of the locals, but he doesn't move like one. He's got a set of readers on his face, and he scans the room, and there's _no fucking place to hide._

Denda sees the guy and makes an unhappy kicked-puppy sound, and about the time the stranger locks on to him and takes a step forward — smiling, looking relieved — he's got her by the arm and he's pulling her up out of her seat. He shoves her a little — hasn't gotten to the point yet of using people like her as human shields — and she runs.

He picks up the pitcher — he'd only poured two glasses out of it; it's half full — and takes a step forward. All that's only taken a second or two; barely long enough for the stranger to finish making his first move.

"Mitchell!" he says. "Oh my god — do you know how many—? Where have you _been?_ Teal'c and I have been looking all over for you! When you—"

Whoever he is, he doesn't get any further than that, because he's let him _(Mitchell? His name?)_ get close enough, and he slings the half-pitcher of beer directly into his face. The readers don't spark, so he guesses they weren't powered up. But the guy chokes and sputters anyway, and that gives him a good chance to sink a fist into his gut, hammer him over the head with the pitcher, run for the door as the guy goes down.

He pulls his gun as he goes. That Jaffa's got to be out here somewhere.

Dark. Cold. The front of the bar has colored lights and floodlights; he keeps his back to them as much as he can, but it's going to take his night vision a while to adjust. There's several battered trucks out here. He recognizes the style; they take a palm-print to activate, and they'd take him too damned long to jury-rig, but they're good cover. He fades back into the shadows, stretching his ears for every sound.

Nothing.

If he can make it out onto the desert, he'll spend a bitch of a night, but he'll be able to see what's coming for him.

"Hey, Jaffa!" he calls into the dark. "You think we can cut a deal here, you and me?" No answer, but he wasn't expecting one. He moves immediately, sliding ghostfooted further into the shadows. Suddenly the human comes bursting out the front door (he finds that a little annoying — usually when he hits someone they stay down).

"Mitchell!" he shouts. "Quit playing around!"

He raises his gun (killing one might discourage the other) but the human's already ducked and rolled into the shadows. He's trying to think of who he's pissed off who's rich enough to hire a pair of professional bounty hunters to chase him to Ass End, because one little justified shooting couldn't do it.

Could it?

On the other hand, if he can take them both out, he's pretty damned sure they didn't come here through the _Chappa'ai_. So things may be looking up.

Or maybe not.

He's down past the end of the building — the lights are all focused on the front door — when suddenly there's a roaring noise overhead and a spotlight hits him. Light so bright it hurts. He stares skyward in shock. There's something up there — not very far overhead. _Tel'tak._ It's just dropped its cloak (which is why the sudden noise; must've been running stealthed as well as cloaked) and that means rings (because you can't run transport rings through a cloak on anything he's ever heard of) and transport rings mean bad things. He fires up at it — hoping to knock out the floods (knowing he's panicking) — and the moment of inattention on the ground war costs him. He feels a heavy weight land against his back, arms encircle him, trapping his arms at his sides. Made him drop his pistol. Bastard.

"Hi," a voice breathes in his ear. "I guess we haven't been introduced. My name's Daniel Jackson. We work together."

By the time the man finishes speaking, the _tel'tak's_ transport rings have come down and gone up again, and he's a prisoner.

But he won't go quietly. The hunters haven't done a conversion on their ship; it still has the bulkhead in place between the cargo area and the _pel'tac_ , and the hatch is locked. It might be enough to buy him a little time. The moment the rings drop, he slams Jackson back against the nearest bulkhead as hard as he can.

"Ow! Mitchell! Hey!" Jackson sounds irritated, but he isn't letting go. He tries a head-butt. It doesn't work, so he goes with the tried-and-true method of just banging Jackson against the bulkhead until he can stun the man and pry him off. Then he can get to one of his backups, shoot Jackson in the stomach to slow him down a little, see what he can do about the damned Jaffa, then come back and see if he can get any answers. Finding out who sent them and why would be nice. Jackson's smart though. He doesn't even get halfway started on that before Jackson lets go and gets himself to where he figures is out of reach.

"Look — look — look — I don't know what's happened to you, but you're stuck here." Jackson talks fast, holding his hands out in front of him placatingly. "On this ship. The rings can't be operated from back here and we're already out of range of the planet. So why don't we all sit down and talk about things? My name is Daniel Jackson and your name is Cameron Mitchell and you and I are friends."

"Really?" he asks sarcastically. The bigger of his two hideouts is at the small of his back, meaning Jackson has to know it's there, so it'll be hard for him to draw inconspicuously. The little one's probably enough to take Jackson down, but it's in his waistband in the front. Decisions, decisions.

"Yeah, well, okay, not exactly. But we work together. I've saved your life, you've saved my life — the point is, two months ago, you went undercover on an _incredibly_ risky mission and you didn't come back, and—"

A remark like that is actually enough to make him stop reaching for his pocket pistol for a second. "Do you mind telling me why I would do an _incredibly_ stupid thing like that?"

Jackson flashes him a grin, there and gone like a warning shot. "Because you're brave, and noble, and really _really_ stupid. I told you infiltrating the Lucian Alliance was a bad idea."

"I am not that stupid," he tells Jackson.

Oh fuck the guns. Some days you just have to go for the classics. He takes a step back — like he's thinking of leaning up against the bulkhead and chatting a while — and when he sees Jackson start to relax, he leans down and whips one of his knives out of his boot and throws it.

And _wouldn't you just fucking know_ that's when the Jaffa picks to open the hatch and snatch his damned knife out of mid air.

The Jaffa's about nine feet tall and looks like he's been cold-forged out of a block of solid _naquaadah_. The kind of guy who eats black holes for breakfast and your liver for lunch. "Are you making progress in reaching a meeting of the minds with Colonel Mitchell, Daniel Jackson?" the Jaffa asks.

"I thought I was," Jackson says, sighing.

The Jaffa looks at his knife like it offends him, and he figures he's got nothing left to lose now, so he goes for his hideout (not the little one, the _big_ one, dammit) and about the time he whips it clear he hears the high whine of a _zat'ni'katel_ powering up. Trust a goddamned Jaffa to bring a _zat'ni'katel_ to a fucking knife fight.

He tries to get a shot off before the Jaffa shoots him, but he doesn't know if he does.

#

_"Tell us who you are! We know you aren't Zantus! Sorfir just brought in his head!"_

Dreams. Nightmares.

_He shouldn't be able to see his own face, but he can. There are cameras here, screens all around the room. Wave to the folks at home, Zantus. You're on Candid Camera. Harfin says he isn't Zantus, and that's just crazy talk. He is. He knows he is. Westi's his boss, and Westi has a yellow streak a mile wide — everybody knows that — and won't leave his district; Westi sent him to negotiate with the Cartel._

_Didn't he?_

_Oh, god, he doesn't know what Harfin stuck into him, but it's made him sick as a pup. Jackson said—_

_He doesn't know anyone named 'Jackson'._

_"Tol' you. M' Zantus," he mumbles._

Dreams.

Nightmares.

_"—scars all over both forearms, Teal'c. They must have realized he wasn't Zantus — somehow — and found the delivery system for the modified Reole drug."_

_"Only a small amount of that compound introduced into the system would induce great confusion, Daniel Jackson."_

He's not sure if he's still dreaming or not. Everything hurts. He can't move. _Don't try,_ he tells himself. If he can hear them, they can see him.

_"You think— When they cut it off, he was exposed. But — it's been six weeks since the Lucians sent us a message that they'd killed him. Without re-exposure, the effects of the Reole drug wear off within—"_

_"And if it were to have another drug added to it?"_

So many questions. A thousand threads of lies and half-truths twisted into the net that's choking him now, and he doesn't know what's memory, what's fantasy, what's just a bad dream. He remembers a man hanging in chains, screaming at the touch of a pain-stick. And they said they knew who he was _said he was Colonel Cameron Mitchell_ but he didn't remember anything no matter what they did to him.

_"Why don't you tell us what your mission was, Colonel?"_

He remembers how to let the blackness take him so he can hide, though. And he does.

#

When he wakes up the next time, he's not on the _tel'tak_. Some planet; he can smell fresh air. There's an ocean nearby. He sits up quickly. Not tied up, no _zat'ni'katel_ hangover. He wonders how long he slept and what he was drugged with to make him sleep.

He's been searched. Stripped. But they left something for him to put on when he woke up, an ugly costume of green cloth. No weapons. No boots, either. Just a pair of (equally-ugly) green socks.

This doesn't make any sense (he's got a headache). Killing him makes sense. Taking him to whoever paid them to grab him makes sense (alive, okay, yeah, that wouldn't be fun — but it would _make sense_ ). Bringing him to wherever this is, taking his clothes, and giving him new clothes? That _does not make sense._

Unless he's been dumped here to die slowly.

He stands carefully and gets himself into the unfamiliar clothing. At least it's clean. He stuffs the socks into a pocket, because the floors are slick and he doesn't want to slip. The room he's in is done in Early Tasteless Ornate Brothel, but the maid hasn't been around lately; because the wall-carvings have a layer of dust on them. There's a doorway and not a door, but — he balls up the socks and tosses them through to check — there's no force shield. He walks out cautiously, picking up the socks as he goes.

Voices.

"—ake him back to the SGC like this, no matter how much fun it'd be to have him try to shoot General Landry in the Gate Room."

That's Jackson.

"I fail to perceive the entertainment value to be derived from such a spectacle."

And that's the Jaffa. Jackson said his name is Teal'c. First Prime. He didn't recognize the _Goa'uld_ -mark, though.

"Liar. Gin. You know, I really hate this place."

"P4X-374 is eminently suitable for our purposes."

Jackson says something else, but he doesn't stick around to hear it. He heads off down the hall, because there's light up ahead and there might be an exit.

There isn't an exit, but there is a _Chappa'ai_. And it looks like Jackson and Teal'c don't want to share the bounty on him, because there doesn't seem to be anyone else here. Good enough. Give him three minutes and he won't be here either.

He starts pressing asterisms on the _Del'mak'ai_ , but none of them light.

"Won't work," Jackson sings out, and he was already turning toward the motion he'd glimpsed, but Jackson seems perfectly happy to just lean against the doorway. Jackson's wearing the same ugly green clothes as they left out for him; he wonders why. "Teal'c took the control crystals out of the DHD and locked them up in the ship. You might be able to get in, but since you'd need to be able to remember your IDC for that, I'm not worried."

"Do you go out of your way to be annoying?" he asks. It might not get him out of here, but it would probably make him feel a lot better to beat Jackson to a pulp.

"Not actually as often as people think," Jackson says. "Come on, Mitchell. We'd like to talk to you. If that can be arranged without hitting."

"I'm always in favor of not being hit," he says. He hasn't said anything about not hitting, if he can get away with it.

#

About an hour later, he revises his opinion a bit. Maybe being hit would be _better._

They offer him food. It's something Jackson calls "emmories," and the Jaffa (also wearing the same green cloth outfit as Jackson, and here he thought that only the Alliance wore uniforms) says there are a couple of cases them left here from when they were using this place as a base. Only... when Jackson hands him one so he can inspect it, it isn't an "emmory" at all. It says "Meals Ready To Eat" on the bag, in a language he can read. (He tries not to let them see how much of a shock that is; he isn't sure how well he does.) He's willing to eat it because it's sealed, and because they eat them too. Jackson complains about the quality and the taste. He guesses Jackson hasn't missed that many meals. He eats two.

Then they start in with their stupid explanation. It's the same one Jackson tried on the _tel'tak_ : that his name is Cameron Mitchell. That he's an officer in the _Tau'ri_ military, specifically in the part of it called Stargate Command, which has to do with the _Tau'ri Chappa'ai_ and that's a secret. That two months ago (whatever a month is) he decided — because he is brave and noble (and stupid) — to go off and infiltrate the Lucian Alliance. Six weeks ago (there are four weeks in a month) the Lucian Alliance told the Stargate Command that he was dead, and sent them pictures of him being tortured, and because Jackson and Teal'c didn't believe that he was dead, they started looking for him.

Oh, but here's where it gets really good. Jackson and the Jaffa _work for him_ , and the Jaffa is the former First Prime of Apophis, who was one of the System Lords. He and Jackson have killed dozens of _Goa'uld_. As for how he (Colonel Cameron Mitchell of the First World) could infiltrate the Alliance, he had a secret alien drug that would make anyone who saw him think he was whoever he said he was.

Only (so Jackson guesses) something went wrong with this drug, and that's why he doesn't remember being this brave, noble, stupid _Tau'ri_ Colonel.

"If you work for me, I can order you to fix the _Chappa'ai_ and leave, right?" he says when they're done.

Jackson sighs. "We don't _work_ for you, Mitchell. You lead SG-1. We all 'work' for Stargate Command. So... that would be a 'no.'"

"Yeah, okay, so what about all of us going back to this Stargate Command place. Just so I can check out your story? It's not like I don't believe you guys..."

"It is our belief that this would be unwise, Colonel Mitchell," the Jaffa says.

"Oh yeah? Why?" Pushing a Jaffa is _so_ not the brightest thing anybody's ever done (usually the _last_ thing anybody ever does) but he can't help it. He has the odd feeling (halfway between a hunch and a memory; probably a death-wish) that this one won't really hurt him.

"Should you return to the SGC in your current state of impairment, it would be difficult for us to persuade General Landry to allow you to remain in charge of SG-1," the Jaffa says.

"Jack might go for it, though," Jackson says. The way he shakes his head indicates it's mostly a joke. Mostly. "The thing is, the Reole chemical — that's what you used to infiltrate the Alliance — is volatile and non-persistent. As far as we know, if the subject isn't given a strong suggestion immediately after it's administered, nothing happens. If the suggestion is counteracted by objective evidence afterward, the fantasy breaks down. Even if you ended up with it in your system, you shouldn't be like... this."

"I like the way I am just fine," he snaps.

"Stargate Command will not," the Jaffa says.

"So-o-o-o... we're hoping a few days in our charming company will remind you that you're, well, _you_ ," Jackson says. (He guesses Jackson and the Jaffa are like two people who've been married long enough to finish each other's sentences, and _he really doesn't need that image in his head right now._ )

"Nice talking to you guys," he says, pushing away from the table.

Neither of them stops him when he leaves.

#

He wanders around the place (looks like some kind of palace — some kind of old, beat-up, dusty palace) for a while, but unless he intends to smother one or the other of them with a blanket or have a lethal pillow-fight, he doesn't find anything that will make much of a weapon. He does find a door to the outside. The brokedown palace is right at the edge of the ocean. Not a blue and gold tropical paradise; the sky is grey, the water is darker grey, and the salt wind blowing in off the water is raw and cold.

_(It feels wrong — as if there's something that ought to be right. He shoves the thought away.)_

The beach is stony (he wonders if they think that will keep him inside?) He picks his way cautiously down the steps to the waterline. It's low tide. The stones here are the ones that will be smoothest. Walking isn't comfortable, but it's not painful. He still doesn't go more than a hundred yards or so.

Suppose they're right? Okay, not about all the _incredibly stupid stuff_ , but about him having been a prisoner of the Alliance and having been given a drug that scrubbed his memory whiter than white. Maybe the Alliance didn't want him dead — or not dead _yet_. Maybe he was a lab-rat. Maybe something else. And maybe he escaped (he thinks of his first memory, of walking away, and wonders where he was an hour before that). And now he's here.

He stands in the surf, looking back the way he came. The palace (yeah, it's a palace all right) is huge and shabby and gaudy, lurid even against the grey sky. He walks (cautiously, sucking air between his teeth), up across the dry stones and sits down.

If he remembers — if he doesn't remember — what then?

#

He isn't out there that long before he sees the Jaffa _(it's Teal'c)_ come out of the building and walk up the beach toward him. When the Jaffa _(Teal'c)_ gets closer, he can see he's carrying something. Boots.

"You will find your return trip more comfortable with footwear, Colonel Mitchell," the Jaffa-no-his-name-is-Teal'c says, stopping beside him.

"Not my name," he says.

Silence.

"You just happen to be carrying boots around in my size?" he asks, because he looked, and these aren't his. (Not the ones he came here wearing.)

"When we began searching for you, Daniel Jackson thought it appropriate to carry suitable dress for your return to Stargate Command."

"Jackson's an optimist." People don't tend to return to anywhere from Alliance hospitality.

"He is indeed."

He gives up and takes the boots. There's socks wadded into one of them, so he doesn't pull out the ones in his pocket. The boots close up with a bunch of little strings in the front. Weird, but he figures it out. They fit, too.

When he has them on, the two of them get to their feet and walk back.

#

He's been here six days. It's just about the longest he's ever been anywhere. He's explored most of the palace (Teal'c says it's an old _Goa'uld_ bordello) and walked for miles along the beach. There aren't any doors anywhere in this place — only doorways (which is fucking annoying, but Jackson says he'll have to take it up with the _Goa'uld_ ). He's moved to a different room to sleep in every night. The others haven't said anything.

He's gotten used to answering to 'Mitchell' — although it would be more accurate to say that he's gotten used to _ignoring_ 'Mitchell', because Jackson's always _talking_ at him (doesn't the man ever shut the fuck up?) and he really doesn't want to listen, because what Jackson says (once Jackson develops the lovely fantasy that he isn't going to get hit; the fact of the matter is that Jackson isn't going to get hit _yet_ ) is that he isn't behaving much like Mitchell at all, and apparently that makes him a fascinating new toy in Jackson's little world, because he goes on (and on and on and _on_ ) about personality being modified by memory until he finally snaps at Jackson that he wouldn't think it was so much fun if he'd ever woke up one day not knowing who _he_ was. He's not sure why that makes Jackson shut up for the next day and a half, but he'll take what he can get.

He doesn't think of himself as 'Mitchell'. In the place inside where there's supposed to be a name, there isn't anything at all.

He doesn't believe them. He doesn't _dis_ believe them. It's a ridiculous story, but it's so ridiculous he can't figure out why anybody would make it up. He can't see where the angle is to convincing him he's this Cameron Mitchell guy if he isn't.

If he were Mitchell, he thinks he'd remember.

#

On the seventh morning he wakes up and knows before he's opened his eyes that something's different. He dresses quickly and goes looking for the others. They aren't in their rooms, or by the _Chappa'ai_. He tries the _Del'mak'ai_ again on the off chance it's working, but it isn't.

He finds Jackson out on the balcony, looking out over the ocean, drinking coffee. It comes in the MREs, and Jackson says it's horrible. (It's an unfamiliar taste, and he wonders if he'd like not-horrible coffee better, but for now he stays with the powdered cocoa, which Jackson also says is horrible. He's starting to wonder if Jackson likes anything.)

"Teal'c's making a supply run," Jackson says without turning around. "We're running low on some stuff."

He's pretty sure that 'stuff' isn't going to include drinking liquor, which is a damned shame, but apparently Jackson's on some kind of temperance kick and Jaffa don't drink. "You didn't expect to be here this long," he says.

"No," Jackson says. "Mitchell—"

"Not my name," he says. The protest is automatic (though usually internal). He doesn't know why it's so important to repudiate a name that he's starting to suspect is actually his.

Jackson turns around, leaning against the rail, cupping the steel mug for warmth. He makes a face (frustration, irritation). "Then pick a name. Ishmael. Legion. Sam Hall. I don't give a damn what you want to call yourself. I—" He shakes his head, sips his coffee, staring down into the cup. "Never mind."

"What?"

"I said—"

"Heard you. Why'n't you go ahead and say it anyway? Maybe it'll be the thing that jars my memory loose." He smiles coldly at Jackson. He doesn't think so. He doesn't think Cameron Mitchell is in here.

Jackson looks up, and his eyes are as cold as the wind off the water. "I think that if you were going to remember who you were you'd have done it by now. I think there isn't anything the SGC can do to fix this. I think that if we were going to find you like this, it would have been better if we found you dead, because at least that way Teal'c would know."

This isn't anger. It's hate. And it's honesty. It's like a punch to the chest, like breathing pure oxygen, like knowing you're about to die. And he realizes that in the last six days he hasn't gotten any of these things (not anger not hate not honesty) from Jackson, for all that the man has spent every hour of the day and half the night stuffing his ears with every useless detail of fucking Cameron fucking Mitchell's fucking life.

A smokescreen. A diversion. And he _fell for it._

He really is too dumb to live.

"Why Teal'c?" Because that's the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn't it, boys and girls? Jackson said it would be better for _Teal'c_ if he was either Cameron Mitchell or dead. He didn't say anything about himself.

"It's none of my business," Jackson mutters, staring back down into his coffee again.

"Yeah, well, maybe it's mine." He closes the space between them — four steps — and gets a fistful of Jackson's shirt, yanking him in close. Jackson drops his cup. It rings on the stone. He pushes in, close and hard, grinding Jackson's body against the balustrade with his.

_(something shifts uncomfortably in the back of his mind, where he can feel but not touch it)_

Jackson throws his head back and laughs. There's no humor in the sound. "I'm not the one you want," he says. "I never was."

He doesn't move. He can feel Jackson's heart, beating against his knuckles. He's trying to think about Mitchell — about Mitchell's _life_ — but it's like trying to fly a ship without an engine. He ducks his chin, shaking his head.

"Oh, you gave a pretty good impression of it at first," Jackson says, his voice low and venomous. "Showed up at the SGC all bright-eyed and brand new. Hero of Antarctica. Man of the hour. I was done. I was going to Atlantis. You followed me around like you were a starving dog and I was a t-bone steak, saying _'pretty please, Dr. Jackson, won't you stay and help me re-form the Legendary SG-1?'_ So... yeah. One thing and another, I stayed. Of course, by then you'd seen Teal'c, and since Vala didn't even blip your radar and we knew about the thing with Sam, we figured that you were just in the market for an SG-1 Hat Trick. But no. It was Teal'c. He wanted an apprentice. You wanted to _be_ an apprentice. I don't know. I don't actually give a damn."

"You're jealous." It's all he can think of.

"Of which of you? And apparently Mitchell's dead anyway." Jackson brings his hands up and shoves. Hard. Harder than he expects, although he already knows that Jackson's strong. It's enough to tear his grip loose, make him stagger back and flail to keep his balance, and while he's trying to keep from falling, Jackson walks back inside.

He walks over and picks up the mug, just for something to hold in his hands.

He wants to think Jackson's lied to him, but in his experience ( _what_ experience?) when a body gets that mad, they tend to tell the truth.

So a lot of things that didn't make sense before make sense now. Why Jackson and Teal'c would take off on a wild goose chase like this. Why they'd hide out with him once they found him, instead of going back to the First World. Teal'c wouldn't believe he was dead without a body, and he'd want revenge on whoever it was in the Alliance who killed him. He must have been tracking in both directions — where he'd been and where he went — until he found the fresher trail. And Teal'c knows he'll be locked up somewhere if he takes him back to the Stargate Command and can't convince them he's the brave, noble (stupid) Colonel Mitchell who went off on this suicide mission. And Teal'c will do a lot to prevent that, because...

Because he and Teal'c.

Sometimes life's a real bitch.

#

He knows where they keep the supplies (they've never actually hidden much from him, except — oh, hey — the keys to the fucking _car_ ) so he can get food (Jackson was telling the gospel truth about them being short-stocked) and headache pills. Two sets of them don't do much for his headache, though, so he gives up. He and Jackson spend the day avoiding each other. At least he spends the day avoiding Jackson; hell if he knows what Jackson's doing. Sometimes he thinks that boy was just born plain _wrong_.

Teal'c doesn't get back from the mall until it's almost dark. He only knows Teal'c's back when he hears him talking to Jackson; he's moved back to the room they put him in that first night, so it's just down the corridor from theirs. He's tried food, pills, and a long walk on the beach, and nothing shook the feeling that his brain is revving itself up inside until it's going to blow. It was there when he lay down, and it's there now. There might've been some sleep in the middle; he isn't sure. Between the pressure and the grogginess, it takes him until he's halfway through lacing up his second boot (the _Tau'ri_ brought down the _Goa'uld_ Empire, and he bet they did it by giving them these boots, because he's never encountered a more dangerous and inefficient design _in his life_ ) to realize that Jackson and Teal'c (in his mind, there's always a whisper of _the Jaffa_ , like a footnote) aren't just talking.

They're arguing.

"—opinion it would be for the best, Daniel Jackson."

"Oh sure. Because sending him back out there to get his _head shot off_ when he can barely tie his own shoes is a good thing, right, Teal'c?"

"Colonel Mitchell would not appreciate the reception he would receive were we to return him to Stargate Command in his present condition."

"Yeah, well, _I_ don't appreciate the reception _I_ receive when I return to Stargate Command half the time these days. I still go." A pause. "Okay. All right. Yeah. What about— What about sending him off to the Free Jaffa? Or—"

"He would not remain. It is better to provide him with the tools for survival."

"The tools to _get dead._ Or did we all miss the part about the _bounty_ the Lucians put on all our heads? Unless you're planning on throwing in a little plastic surgery, all you're doing is arranging for him to get picked up and tortured — to death this time — for something he doesn't know anything about."

There's another silence. Longer this time.

_"Teal'c—!"_

And Jackson sounds so horrified that he decides he's tired of eavesdropping.

When he walks into the room, Jackson turns to him. "Mitchell!" he demands. "Tell him not to do it!"

He looks at Teal'c, puzzled. Teal'c is standing with his arms folded across his chest (Jaffa Stubborn Stance Number Five Hundred Fifty-Eight: We Shall Not Be Moved). "Sure," he says slowly. "Not do what?"

"Go— Go— Go off with you and— And— And play _Bonnie and Clyde_ somewhere!" Jackson sputters.

That gets Jackson The Eyebrow from Teal'c. "In fact, Daniel Jackson, Colonel Mitchell and I would be _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_. I would be Butch Cassidy."

Jackson makes an exasperated noise. He (not Mitchell, not Colonel) doesn't get either reference. What he _does_ get is that...

"You're letting me go?" he says slowly.

"I'm going to Atlantis," Jackson announces. "Vala's dating Ba'al, Sam's moving to the Moon, you've decided to go be a bank robber — I'm going to Atlantis."

"In fact, Vala Mal Doran is dating Ba'al's former host, as you are well aware," Teal'c says to Jackson.

"Always a bridesmaid," Jackson mutters.

He doesn't understand what Jackson's talking about this time either, but he thinks if he gets to choose between understanding Jackson and not understanding Jackson, he'll pick not understanding Jackson. Jackson can be clear when he wants to be, and when he is, it cuts like a scalpel.

Now Teal'c turns to him. "In fact, Colonel Mitchell, we are not letting you go. We are merely not returning with you to Stargate Command. I believe it would be pleasant if we were to travel together for awhile."

" _I'm_ returning to the SGC," Jackson says, leaning his hip against the table and staring up at the ceiling. "Where I will skip throwing myself on Landry's mercy and go straight to playing the Jack O'Neill card, because that's the only thing that's going to save my ass after you and I stole Earth's modified _tel'tak_ from Area 51. And oh yeah — let's not forget the whole "absent without permission" thing. Yeah, that's always a crowd-pleaser. What Teal'c isn't mentioning, Mitchell — because he's nicer than I am — is that the Lucian Alliance has a bounty out on you that they're dying — or _you'd_ be dying, actually — to collect. And that if we take you back to Earth, you get locked up somewhere for a really long time."

"I actually figured out the locking up part myself, thanks," he says. And now Jackson's pissed with him, and Teal'c's pissed with Jackson, and he... Knowing Jackson was telling the truth this morning isn't like _knowing_ Jackson was telling the truth. It makes him feel—

_(frightened)_

_(lonely)_

—he isn't sure how it makes him feel, because not having a memory means you don't have a past, just a _now_. And there hasn't been anybody in that _now_ but him. No family, no friends—

_(no lover)_

—nobody who'd give up a whole life to watch his back.

But this Jaffa warrior — Teal'c of Chulak, former First Prime to Apophis, _Goa'uld_ -killer, hero of the _Tau'ri_ — loves _the man he actually isn't any more_ so much that he'll go with him. Because the Lucian Alliance wants that man _(wants Colonel Cameron Mitchell)_ dead. And the odds _("Never tell me the odds," a voice whispers in his mind, and he doesn't know who it is — someone Mitchell knew?)_ are — if the Alliance really wants Mitchell dead — it'll get what it wants, and that means it'll get Teal'c too.

"Good," he says shakily. "So... good. That's good. So... what'd you bring back in the way of supplies?"

#

Dinner isn't exactly _festive_ , but it's a change from MREs, and wherever Teal'c went on his supply run, he picked up (what's apparently better) coffee and chocolate and fresh bread and even beer. The beer is a nice change from water (the _Goa'uld_ palace purifies the seawater until it's drinkable, but it's flat and tasteless) or cocoa, or fruit drink mix, and he thinks he's missed fresh bread. He's not sure. There's fruit, too — grapes and oranges — and anybody would miss those.

He tries not to watch Teal'c. He thinks he'll give too much away. He doesn't want to look at Jackson, either. But he wonders (because Jackson has _babbled like a fucking drain_ ever since he's gotten here), just what it was that Colonel Mitchell fucked up enough that Jackson's still furious about it three years later. Because Jackson and Teal'c have been on this SG-1 thing for years together, so if either of them was going to make a move, they'd had plenty of time. And Jackson says Mitchell was interested in him back in the day, so it can't be (can it?) that Jackson wanted Mitchell and got shut out.

It has to be that Jackson wanted _Teal'c,_ and he was okay with not getting when Teal'c didn't look like going after anyone. Then Teal'c chose him _(chose Mitchell, and for the first time since the two of them grabbed him and started turning his world inside out, he wishes he_ were _Mitchell — all of Mitchell)_ and Jackson realized that Tealc's disinterest was _personal_.

They get all the way through to dessert (he's had three beers, Jackson's had two), while he works all that through in his head, and gets to where he realizes that despite that, Jackson _still_ came along with Teal'c to rescue Mitchell. And he realizes that Teal'c has to know all that stuff that's kicking around in Jackson's head, and he _still_ trusts him not just to watch his back, but to watch _his_ back, too. And that makes him think that this SG-1 thing must be kind of amazing, and he sort of wishes he remembered it.

"If— If I got those—" (he can't quite bring himself to say "my") "—memories back, they wouldn't keep me locked up on your planet, would they?" he asks haltingly.

Both of them stop what they're doing — Jackson's peeling an orange, Teal'c's eating grapes — and just _stare_ at him like he's developed _naquaadah_ eyes or something.

"Harfin was not encouraging," Teal'c finally says flatly.

"Uh-h-h... What Teal'c means is, after we picked you up, we went back to talk to the people who'd been holding you prisoner," Jackson says. "You went undercover as a man named Zantus, who was an enforcer for Westi. Westi was one of Kefflin's underbosses — with Netan dead, we're pretty sure Kefflin's the new head of the Lucians. We thought the impersonation would work because we had Zantus in protective custody, only he escaped. That's when you were turned over to Harfin for interrogation."

"Yeah, fine, okay, whatever," he says irritably. They've been over this before, although the part about paying Harfin a visit is new. He's not that wild about getting the details.

"Will you _listen_ to me for once in your life, Mitchell?" Jackson snaps. "We went in to the base you'd been held at and got Harfin out. Teal'c _talked_ to him. Harfin didn't know anything about a Reole drug — he thought you were wearing the special fake-skin gloves to fool a print and gene scan — but he told Teal'c everything he did to you. Everything he used. None of it would have done this." Jackson sighs, and when he goes on, he sounds kinder than he has yet. The sympathy in his voice burns like acid. "If we can't even figure out what caused it, there's no cure for it on Earth. I'm sorry."

"I'll talk to him myself," he says, voice tight. He hates the fact that he wants this.

"You cannot. Harfin is dead," Teal'c says.

He'd accuse Teal'c of wanting him to _stay_ this way, except for the fact that Teal'c looks about as miserable as somebody pulling that whole "Great Stone Jaffa This Is Not An Expression" shtick can look, and just when the hell did he get to be so fucking expert on Teal'c's expressions, anyway? He wants to say that he hopes Harfin died screaming — because he does (even if he can't remember anything Harfin did to him) — but he keeps his tongue between his teeth out of the suspicion that it isn't something Colonel Mitchell would say.

He hates the fact that he cares.

He nods, just a little. "Guess not too many people are going to cry over him," he says. "You don't mind, think I'll go for a little stroll before I turn in."

#

Apparently the _Tau'ri_ don't have any cloth that isn't ugly and green (or ugly and black), but the jacket that goes with the shirt and the pants is warm. He takes a lighting-stick, but he doesn't really need it: the moon is full, and at night (on this world) the ocean fluoresces. He walks up the beach for hours to the crash of the radiant moon-white surf, trying to fit himself into a universe where people care about each other this way. This much. Even when they hate each other.

Mostly he thinks about Teal'c. About Mitchell and Teal'c. Or he tries to. It's like trying to imagine what your face looked like before you were born.

He may only have existed for six _Tau'ri_ "weeks", but he's done a lot of things in that time. Fought and flown and fucked. _(Pretty boys in noisy back rooms; pretty girls in filthy alleyways.)_ He hasn't loved. Not the way Teal'c loves Mitchell. Not even the way Teal'c loves Jackson, because there _is_ love there, too, just a different kind. Whenever he'd hear about love — whores and gamblers talk about it a lot — he never said anything, but he always thought it was as mythical a thing as peace, or the Ancient Ones coming back, or Lantia the Lost.

Only Jackson's talking about going to Lantia. And Teal'c loves Mitchell enough to die with _him_ instead.

He turns around and walks back the way he came.

#

He's not completely surprised to see someone out on the balcony. Leaning on the railing, staring out at the ocean. Moonlight deceives; it makes things look like what they aren't, but he gets closer and there's a head-turn and the flash of moonlight on readers _(glasses)_ and he knows for sure that it's Jackson. Not keeping an eye on him — no point to that — just out here in the quiet, watching the sea.

"With all the planets I've been to, sometimes I forget how beautiful they can be," Jackson says, when he gets up the steps. "The first time I came here, I tried to kill myself after I left. We didn't realize — back then — that the place had been the _Goa'uld_ equivalent of an opium den. It's shut down now."

It sounds like more of Jackson's babble — meaningless noise — and it is. And it isn't. Protective coloration. Information if you know how to look. "You came here with Teal'c," he says.

"With SG-5 first. They died. But, yeah. Teal'c, Sam, Jack. About seven years ago. So, about four years before you joined us."

He lets that go; the eternal argument about being-or-not-being Mitchell isn't worth having right now, and he isn't really sure which side of it he's on any more. He stands beside Jackson and leans his weight on the railing. The crash and hiss of the surf is so rhythmic as to fade into inaudibility. He turns over in his mind the shape of what he means to say. To ask. "I need you to be straight with me," he says.

Jackson laughs, a short startled bark. "Sorry. Earth idiom. You don't remember why it's funny — which is a whole research paper in itself that I'll never get to write. Sorry. Go ahead."

"This SG-1 thing — it's pretty important, right?" he asks.

"Used to be." Jackson's voice is so carefully-neutral that he can tell the man's not saying about a lifetime's worth of things.

"And Teal'c — he's important to it?"

"Depends on who you ask. It wouldn't exist without him. We wouldn't be alive. The Jaffa would all still be slaves. Earth — your home planet — would have been blown to shit by the _Goa'uld_. You'd be dead. Little things."

"So him running off to nursemaid me until the Alliance kills both of us is kind of stupid?"

The pause before Jackson answers his third question is the sound of Jackson trying not to scream. He can hear it clearly. "Do feel free to try to change his mind, Mitchell. Please." Jackson pushes away from the railing and stalks inside.

It's funny — for all that they've told him and not-told him about SG-1 being so much of a team — what they seem to do most here is walk away from each other.

#

Cameron Mitchell — _Colonel_ Cameron Mitchell — is brave and noble and probably stupid, and he knows exactly what Cameron Mitchell would do in this situation. The funny thing (laugh 'till you cry) is, it's what he'd do too.

And neither one of them can.

Good ol' Cam Mitchell, he'd hightail it out of here by himself so that his good buddy Teal'c couldn't throw his life away watching his back. Maybe head on back to that Stargate Command of his and tell them what had happened. Well, he doesn't know what asterisms will open the _Chappa'ai_ to the Stargate Command, but it doesn't really matter. The _Del'mak'ai_ isn't working anyway.

He even went off and found Teal'c — after he'd managed to chase Jackson in off the back porch and stood around out there brooding until it got too cold for him — to try to explain to him that it was a fool's errand to go chasing around the galaxy with him. Didn't remember him. Never would. And all the damned thick-headed bastard would say was that a fella's past wasn't near as important as the future he made for himself. He'd spent a good half-hour trying to explain to Teal'c that he was a man with no name, no past, and a future that wasn't looking all that rosy, either, and he would take it as a particular favor if Teal'c would leave him to meet his Maker in decent peace and privacy. And that worked out about as well as he should have expected it to, seeing as he has two kinds of luck: "bad" and "none". In a _sane_ world, he could expect Jackson's help in zatting Teal'c to keep him quiet while he clears out, but just because Teal'c can out-stubborn Jackson doesn't mean Jackson isn't as stubborn as a rock in the road. He won't get any help there.

He knows that life isn't fair. Nobody better. It still _fucking sucks_ , because he's killed people he didn't like, and people he didn't care about, but now he's going to kill someone who isn't either of these things.

Someone worth a thousand of him.

#

After he gives up on arguing with Teal'c, he wanders all over the pleasure-palace again, until he realizes he's stumbling with exhaustion and his headache's back. Too much to hope for that he's got a fatal illness that will _kill_ him before morning, but a guy can dream. Before he turns in, he goes back up to the storage room on the off-chance that there are drugs, weapons, control crystals for the _Del'mak'ai_ , or the access key for the _tel'tak_ lying around. There aren't (they let him have a knife to cut his meat with; he didn't even bother trying to hide it and he can't find it now), so he grabs another bottle of beer and another set of headache pills (he might as well be popping _fucking jellybeans_ for all the good they're doing) and goes off to his bedroom. There's a light on in Jackson's room — apparently when Jackson heads out across the galaxy on an illegal-and-life-threatening rescue operation he brings a library with him, because he's been spending a lot of time reading — and the flicker of candles from Teal'c's.

(It isn't _kel'no'reem_ , because Teal'c's on tretonin, like a lot of the Jaffa now, so he sleeps. He can't remember who told him that. Tretonin is one of the ways the Alliance hangs on to its power out here — they pay their Jaffa mercs in the stuff. Without their daily shot of ground- _Goa'uld_ happyjuice, they'd be dead, unless they could find a _Goa'uld_ to work for who had a Mama- _Goa'uld_ on tap, and there aren't too many of those left.)

He finishes off his beer, gets into bed and lies there, staring up at the ceiling. It's dark in here, except for the bit of light that leaks in from the other rooms. He doesn't mind. Once he wasn't fearful of the night, but that was before the night came inside. He remembers Jackson babbling on, a few days ago, just after they got here.

_"You'd make a particularly interesting case study for a psychologist — I suppose, not my field — because there've always been two schools of thought regarding memory and personality, you see, and one holds that they're independent of each other — that you'd be the same kind of person whether you remembered who you were or not — and the other holds that you're really only the sum of your experiences. It's really just the "nature versus nurture" debate again — and that one's been going strong for the last eight centuries, so I don't see either side really declaring a decisive victory any time soon — but in your case—"_

He'd never found out what "in his case" might be, since he'd pulled off his boot and thrown it at Jackson to shut him up. Now he wishes he'd listened. He thinks Jackson had been working around to saying that whoever he is, now that he can't remember anything, that man is really different from Mitchell, and he wonders (too late now for these questions to do anyone any good) if Harfin did something to him that made him all _wrong_ inside.

But he's tired, and maybe a little drunk, and he sleeps.

#

_They take him on his way to meet with Sinaba. He's been playing kissyface with Sinaba all week: you have to get through Sinaba to get to Kefflin, the Howard Hughes of Interstellar Mafiosi. Sometimes he fantasizes that Kefflin is dead, and Sinaba's running the Lucians all by herself. Oh, there's a thought. Who'd know? Nobody sees Keflin, after all. Which is a little worrying, because his Lamont Cranston Gloves won't work over video; he needs to shake Kefflin's hand or pat him on his rosy little butt to convince him he's Zantus. He was as careful as Jackson could possibly want — started all the way back with Westi and did him first — had to, to get to the next step up the food-chain anyway — so if anyone checks with him, Westi will swear himself blue that Momma Mitchell's blue-eyed boy is Zantus of Kubon, rising young Mafioso._

_Does him fuck-all in the way of good when Harfin and six Jaffa muscle grab him outside of Sinaba's office and beat him unconscious._

_He wakes up in one of the interrogation rooms, strapped into a chair. Monitors all around the walls, showing him his (bruised and bloody) face. And he keeps running his bluff, because that's all he's got (the folks at home know Westi — because they cracked Zantus that far — but they don't know where he is now: rescue isn't coming). And eventually (after too damned long) Harfin shows him Zantus's severed head, but by then he's already hallucinating, because when Harfin put the cuffs on him (high-pressure spray-injectors for drugs, just like on_ Star Trek _), every time Harfin doses him again, the pressure pumps more of the Reole chemical into Cam's bloodstream._

_Harfin keeps demanding to know who he is. Each time he asks, Cam feels more of himself slip away. By the time Kefflin comes down from Mount Abora and identifies him, the damage has been done._

_Colonel Cameron Mitchell is gone._

#

He wakes up roaring — terror and horror and a _rage_ so vast that he's gasping with the need to kill. Someone. Something. Jackson. He's not sure why, but he thinks Jackson's responsible for this. He doesn't even remember what 'this' is. He doesn't care.

He's struggling. Warm weight. Inexhaustible. Teal'c doesn't speak his name to call him back to himself. He doesn't have a name.

It's a long time before he stops struggling to get loose. He drops his forehead to Teal'c's shoulder. Teal'c's skin is cool. Or at least it isn't as hot as his. "Put me down like I was a mad dog," he mutters.

"I will not," Teal'c says calmly. "You are not a dog. You are a man."

Whatever was in the dream is gone now. But it doesn't matter. It was enough to show him the shape of things to come. He won't be able to watch Teal'c's back while Teal'c's watching his. Hell, Teal'c won't be able to let him have a _letter opener_. He'll probably turn on Teal'c next. He shakes his head against Teal'c's shoulder. "They fucked me over good, T. They're just getting worse. You weren't who you are, I could'a killed you."

"But you did not."

He laughs shakily. "Hey, there's always a next time."

It's good to be touched. He can't remember the last time he was (the answer to that is "never", because he doesn't remember Colonel Mitchell's fortunate life, but he knows his own inside and out, and the sex was quick and casual, and the fights were brutish and short, and he never held anyone, and no one ever held him).

Until now.

Teal'c is sitting on the edge of his bed, where he came to rest on his mission to keep him from ... doing something bad. They're pressed up against each other, knee to hip; he's tangled in the bedclothes. He can still feel the print of Teal'c's hands on his forearms where Teal'c was grappling with him, but Teal'c let go as soon as he settled down. He's got one arm around his back now, the other one just cupping his shoulder.

"I do not believe that you wish to kill me," Teal'c says.

When Teal'c speaks, he can feel the rumble of the words in Teal'c's chest (he's not just leaning, now; he's lying). Teal'c makes him feel safe. It's nothing more than an illusion (he knows that). People can't make you safe. People can't _keep_ you safe.

He doesn't exist at all.

"Tell me who I am," he whispers. "Tell you if I do or not."

"You are my friend." Teal'c's hand smoothes down his back, from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine, a warm slow stroke. "You are my comrade." Again, and for all that Tealc's voice is calm and slow, he has his face pressed against Teal'c's throat and he can feel the quick strong beat of the pulse there. "You are my student. And — sometimes — you are my teacher."

He looks up at that, because he can't imagine anything he could teach this man, what gift he could bring that would be good enough to offer, what he could know that Teal'c doesn't. There's no more light in here than there was before, but there doesn't have to be. Imagination, hope, or memory, he knows how Teal'c is looking at him.

What he wants. _Who_ he wants. Nature and nurture and whether you remember who you are or not, you're still you. He lifts his chin, offering his mouth to the kiss, and never doubts for one moment that the gift he offers will be accepted.

When he feels Teal'c's mouth against his, he feels a pang of _disappointment_ that the kiss doesn't arouse memories. It should. Then he stops grasping for something _(the past)_ that he can't have. This is now — lips and tongues and unhurried exploration, as if kissing could be enough — and it's so utterly unlike the clinical half-angry couplings in his memories (he never kissed any of them) that it leaves him gasping and trembling with emotion before they've done more than that.

"Come," Teal'c says. "We will lie down."

Teal'c doesn't call him by any name at all. He's grateful for that.

It's hard to let go, to back off, to lie down. The bed's gotten cold while he was sitting up. Teal'c pauses to strip off his underwear, to straighten the blankets. Then he folds them back and climbs into the bed.

Chest to chest and face to face. A shared past that only Teal'c remembers, a present that they both know, a future that's anybody's guess (and probably damned short). "I don't want you to die," he blurts out.

"I do not wish to die at any time in the near future, nor do I have any plans to do so," Teal'c answers. He slides a hand down over his back, his ass, pressing the two of them together. "Nor do I believe that this is an appropriate topic of conversation for the activity in which we are currently engaged."

He can feel the ridges of Teal'c's pouch against his stomach. It makes him groan into Teal'c's open mouth, rubbing himself harder against Teal'c, wanting to _feel_ , until Teal'c takes his hand and guides it down between them so he can touch. All that's left of it are tight raised scars where the pouch has healed shut. He slides his hand lower, sliding it around Teal'c's cock. (Hard, and he _wants_...) Teal'c nips at the edge of his mouth, and his hips rock forward reflexively.

He knows all the things you can pay someone to do to you, or let you do to them. He's done as many of them as he had time and money and inclination for, and he's seen pictures of the rest. It's different when it happens in the bed you sleep in. It's different when you don't have to pay. It's different when you love the man you're with, when he whispers love-words to you in the dark, even if they're in a language you don't understand. It's different when he loves you, even if you're fucked up in the head and hurt and might not ever be okay again.

They don't do all the fancy things, and that's okay. This (heat and pressure and sweet sticky friction) is perfect, and when he's panting and gasping and making little noises in the back of his throat (not wanting to let go, not wanting to stop _touching_ ), Teal'c slides his hand down between their sweat-slick bellies and wraps his hand around both of them together, and it only takes a couple of slow firm pulls before he's crying out and clutching at Teal'c's shoulder. Then Teal'c holds his hips still, thrusting slickly through the messy wetness, and even though he's spent (exhausted, satiated, fucking _wiped_ ) it's a promise of good things to come, and he nuzzles at Teal'c's neck.

He's not entirely sure when he goes from waking to sleeping. He only knows that he doesn't dream.

#

He wakes up in the morning feeling ... good _(happy)_ and in the split-second between waking up and remembering-that-he-doesn't-remember, he almost feels ... normal.

"Good morning," Teal'c says, and there's just a half-beat on the end of the sentence where a name ought to go, but he doesn't have one, so there isn't one. "I trust you slept well?"

"Yeah." He smiles. Because he's _happy,_ and it feels as if it's an expression on somebody else's face. "I feel like I could eat a—" he stops, not sure what he was going to say.

"A very large breakfast," Teal'c suggests. "However, I feel it would be unwise to permit Daniel Jackson to prepare our morning meal. We should bathe and dress with all deliberate speed."

#

They bathe and dress, but if Jackson's waiting on them in order to get breakfast, the guy probably starves to death.

#

After breakfast, Teal'c says he has a brief errand to run. He tries not to look either disappointed or puzzled (or annoyed at having to spend however long it's going to be alone here with Jackson, considering how well their last alone time worked out). But Jackson doesn't look particularly cranky (he doesn't look like much of anything, since he's reading another of his books). "Will you quit _pacing_?" he demands, looking up. "He said 'brief'. He's just gone to get the control crystals for the DHD, because this isn't my idea of a great place to retire to."

"The, uh, the what—?"

Jackson waves in the direction of the _Chappa'ai_. "The round thing with the buttons in front of the Stargate. The Dial Home Device."

"That's a stupid thing to call it."

"Well, we tried calling it 'Homer,' but—" he sighs. "I'm going to miss Teal'c. I'll even miss Mitchell."

"Yeah, well, sorry about that," he says. "I took him out for a spin and I broke him. This is why I can't have nice things."

Jackson looks up quickly, and he wonders what he's just said. "Not your fault. I know you have no idea what happened, but — trust me — we do. And the only way Mitchell could've kept from getting caught would have been by not going."

"I guess he couldn't do that," he says, sitting down.

Jackson makes a face. "Brave, noble — you remember. And the Lucians are kind of a big problem that we'd like to fix."

"Can't spend all your time solving other peoples' problems," he says, and Jackson huffs in amusement. "Hey," he adds. "I know you said your folks can't fix what the Alliance did to me, but... Do you think it might ever just wear off? Sometime?"

Jackson looks at him and frowns, and he gets the feeling that Jackson's looking _past_ him, or _through_ him, or something. "We don't actually know as much as we think we do about how memories are created or stored. The human brain seems to be a redundant system — meaning everything stored in it is stored in several duplicate locations. The best answer I can give you — the only really honest one — is 'maybe'. And whatever you do — or don't do — won't have much effect on that either way."

"Thanks," he says. "I think."

"Don't mention it," Jackson says. "I'm still trying to get back some of my memories from the last time I died, anyway."

#

When Teal'c gets back, he brings the _tel'tak_ with him, and lands it up on the bluff above the beach. It's the brightest thing in the landscape, even in the dull cloudy daylight. When he comes inside, he brings a box with him, and spends the rest of the morning putting the _Del'mak'ai_ back together. Jackson helps. Jackson complains a lot, too.

He'd been wondering why Teal'c brought so many supplies with him on the last supply run if he'd already been planning for the two of them just to go off, but now it all becomes clear. Jackson is going to spend several days here alone before going back to the Stargate Command. One of the things he'll do before he goes is destroy any indication that anyone's ever been here.

He's been wondering (all morning) why Jackson's changed his mind so completely since yesterday. Now he's perfectly willing for the two of them to go off together. Then he wasn't. Watching them fuss and bicker over the _Del'mak'ai_ , he thinks he gets it. Jackson wishes he'd been the one Teal'c picked to love. But even if he isn't, he still loves Teal'c. He wants him to be happy. He thinks he can be.

Maybe he'll be able to get Teal'c to tell him some stories about this SG-1 thing later. He thinks he'd like to know about something that can make people like Jackson _(and Mitchell, and Teal'c)_ act the way they have.

Once they test the _Chappa'ai_ , it's time to go. (He thinks Jackson wants them out of here as soon as possible; he thinks Jackson misses Teal'c already.) He changes back into normal clothes again. Even after only eight days wearing something else, they feel strange, but he won't miss the _Tau'ri_ Boots Of Death. He supposes he's never going to feel that any one thing is the right thing for a long time. That's okay.

He's also pretty damned sure that anybody getting one look at Teal'c is just going to surrender without a fight. If it'd been Teal'c down there on Ass End instead of Jackson, _he_ would've.

Jackson says goodbye to them in the doorway that leads out to the beach. Clasps forearms with Teal'c, says something in that foreign language, then Teal'c hugs Jackson hard.

"Come home safe," Jackson says, then turns to him. "You'll need a name," Jackson says. "For a while anyway. You name ships when you launch them, and we're launching you, so... Not Mitchell. Not Zantus. I christen thee... _Lazarus._ " Jackson kisses him carefully, formally, once on each cheek. "It's a good name. Suitable. Teal'c will explain."

He glances toward Teal'c, frowning a bit. Teal'c is smiling (just with his eyes), so he guesses it's okay. "Thanks," he says. "For everything." _Lazarus. My name is Lazarus._ "Come on," he says to Teal'c. "Let's ride."

Teal'c bows, just a little. Jackson steps back, and he and Teal'c walk out of the pleasure-palace toward the waiting _tel'tak._

_Lazarus, come forth._

###

**Author's Note:**

> This was written, as far as I can remember, for the Little Black Dress Ficathon, and if you remember any more of the details about that, feel free to let me know.... 
> 
> I know Kazbaby gave me the prompts, but the only ones I remember now are "amnesia" and "Wild West saloon shootout", and I may be wrong about that too...
> 
> As with a lot of my stuff, I had no idea where I was going when I started. Unlike a lot of my stuff, I had a DEADLINE, so most of this ended up being written in one crazy marathon session just before posting time. I think it came out pretty good, all things considered.
> 
> It also sparked a flurry of circular genderflip remixes, starting with Cammie instead of Cam, and eventually coming back to me, when I redid the story as Cammie/Dani. So there you are.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [WHO KNEW WHAT OTHERS DIED TO PROVE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/660215) by [ivorygates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates)




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